Its a bit late to be concerned about relying on gambling to supplement taxes, isn't it? The whole province depends on this voluntary sucker tax to pay for lots and lots of stuff. It's true, one's born every minute!

In a small town like this, and low population in the surrounding area I wonder how long these Casinos can keep sucking the blood out of the gamblers. At some point these people have to either go broke or realize that this is simply a Government tax and give up the game. If the City gets 2.35 Million I would presume that the Casino and The Lottery Corp gets at least as much. This would amount to a minimum of $7,000,000.00 lost by people in this area. You would think that they would catch on to the fact that they are being suckered. Fat Chance.

Actually, the city will get less than 10%. The next biggest cut goes to the casino and the biggest chunk by far is the provincial govt. who shares alittle with some local non-profit orgs. and put a big chunk into their "operations budget".
BCLC's (BC Lottery Corp.) total revinue last year was 2.03 BILLION $$$$ as per their annual report. Total Casino revenue in BC was 824.5 million in the 2004/05 year ending March 31st. The Prince George Casino's revenue for the same period was $32,154,957.00. Now if that isn't a gross amount of money coming out of the community, what is?
My opinion is that gambling should be outlawed. If the organizations that survive from these proceeds really need the money they should be supported by the govt through our taxes. We'd have less suicides, less family break-up, less family violence, less crime and one less addiction problem to worry about. I know it wouldn't go away, but we wouldn't be making it so easy for them.

I work with a guy who lives in a small one bedroom apartment that is completely empty. His paycheck is around $1500 every two weeks, and he spends 80% of it at the casino. He brags when he is up $200, but says nothing when he lost he whole paycheck the next day. His rational is that he will hit it big one day and that is when he will quite. He feels he has too much invested at this point.

I also have another buddy that he and his wife spend both of their paychecks at the casino and recently had to declair bankruptcy as a result. Same rational for them as well. I feel sorry for their two children which are the ones that suffer the most as a result.

I agree that we should never have allowed gambling in this Province. Those who wanted to gamble used to go to Reno or Las Vegas and that was fine, however once it was established here it makes it much easier for people to gamble and lose. Of course its their business if they wish to give their money to the Casino Owners and the Provincial Government. Making gambling legal will cause all kinds of difficulty over the long haul, and our Government should not be a part of it. They can rationalize it all they want, but the bottom line is, it is not right.

The city council and the mayor voted against allowing slot machines in Prince George.

However, the one-armed bandits were brought in anyways as the law allowed the casino to install them.

The rationale of the government at the time was that those who go regularly to Reno and Las Vegas should have the opportunity to spend their money here instead.

Well, there are still regular bus tour going from the Okanagan (Osoyoos) to the casinos in Nevada!